Apr 23, 2013

For all intents and purposes, the first steps of the Jaguar micro-architecture from Advanced Micro Devices came in the form of the hardware used in the Sony PlayStation 4 game console.

The Jaguar is being used in other things as well though, in this case embedded system-on-chip devices bearing the brand G-Series. AMD Figured that smart TVs, set-top boxes, interactive digital signage and informational kiosks could all do with an upgrade. The new series of chips has shared L2 cache, enterprise-class ECC (error correction code), fast memory support, parallel processing (via GPU), high performance per watt. For example, the GPU alone can deliver 150 GFLOPS more than the x86 cores. Add to that OpenCL (enables CPU and GPU parallel processing) and application development becomes quite convenient in industrial control and automation, communications and other processor-heavy applications. "We have built a treasure trove of industry-leading IP in processors, graphics and multimedia along with the infrastructure to combine these building blocks into unsurpassed embedded SOC solutions," said Arun Iyengar, vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Solutions.

"With a 33 percent smaller footprint, low power consumption and exceptional performance, the new AMD Embedded G-Series SOC sets the bar for content-rich multimedia and traditional workload processing that is ideal for a broad variety of embedded applications." There are five G-Series models, right now, with two or four cores and TDPs of 15W or 25W. Pricing ranges from $49-$72, or €37.57-49 to €55.20-72.